Admin Home > Security
The Security area of Compleat contains important settings for determining the fields and layouts users can access when creating and editing transactions. As an Administrator, it's likely that you'll visit this area frequently as the needs of your Compleat users evolve and their access requirements change.
When a user is entering a new transaction in Compleat, the security configuration dictates the following:
- Which layouts they can choose from.
- Which company or companies they can select from.
- Which codes they can choose within drop-downs.
- Which values default into a field, if any.
- Whether budget checking is switched on, and how it behaves.
In this article, we explain how the security area works, and how to update and maintain your users' security settings.
When you're done reading, check out our case study to see how TipTop Cleaners set up their security in Compleat.
The security hierarchy
The Security area in Compleat contains three key sections:
- Group Profiles
- Security Groups
- Security Profiles
It's easiest to view them as a hierarchy at three levels, with the top two levels of the hierarchy inheriting configuration settings from the level below them.
Like this:
Group profiles (top of the hierarchy)
Group profiles contain one or more Security groups, which are a level below them in the hierarchy. Group profiles inherit security access from security groups, as well as the security profiles within them.
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Security groups (middle of the hierarchy)
Security groups grant access to the company, or companies, that a user needs to be part of. Security groups contain one or more Security profiles, which are a level below them in the hierarchy. They also inherit their configuration. Security groups are grouped into group profiles.
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Security profiles (bottom of the hierarchy)
Security profiles are linked to a specific layout and company. They dictate budget checking settings, and what codes users can choose from when editing transactions. Security profiles are grouped into Security groups.
Security profiles
Admin Home > Security > Security profiles
Security profiles sit at the bottom of the security hierarchy, containing the most granular level of configuration for determining what a user can see and do when they're dealing with a transaction like an invoice or order.
As a minimum, you should create one security profile per layout per company. However, if different departments in your organisation need unique security access, such as restriction to different cost centres, you need to create a security profile per department, per layout, per company.
Keep your security requirements as simple as possible to avoid having a large volume of complicated security profiles to manage and maintain.
You can customise the following fields in a security profile.
| Security profile description |
We recommend you use this format for your profile description: "Security profile for department name - company code - (layout code)" Eg. "Security profile for Operations - A - (POG)" |
| Company |
The company that this security profile is linked to. A security profile can only be linked to one company. |
| Layout |
The layout (form) that this security profile is linked to. A security profile can only be linked to one layout. |
| Allow period change | If ticked, a user has the ability to override the budgeting period that a requisition falls into. |
| Posting periods forwards/backwards |
This number determines how many budgeting periods, forwards or backwards, the transaction can be posted to from the current period. Eg. If the current period is period 6, and you enter "1" into both forwards and backwards, the user can override the posting period to period 5, 6, or 7, |
| Span of budget checking periods | If you have budget checking switched on, this setting determines which method of budget checking should be used for this security profile. |
| Allow live budget checking |
Switch budget checking on or off. Useful when you're using PLAN or caching in a budget from your finance system. |
| Allow manual delivery address |
If ticked, lets a user manually enter a delivery address when creating a requisition. If not ticked, you should ensure that delivery addresses are feeding to Compleat from your finance system, or that you've configured them as custom codes. |
| Allow extended supplier details | If ticked, a user can add or a supplier email address in the transaction header if the email hasn't cached in from your finance system. |
In the main Security Profiles area, there's also a grid offering several security options. Each option represents a field that may appear in the layout for the user to select from. The grid contains segments of your chart of accounts (known in Compleat as M codes), custom fields that are being captured in the layout (known as C codes), and other fields that appear as standard in the layout, eg. supplier.
Restrict codes against fields in a security profile
Security profiles grant access to all fields and their available codes by default. However, you can apply restrictions against the codes that users can select against certain field.
Here's how.
- Click a field.
- The Record Restriction Box appears.
Drag individual codes from the left-hand box into the right-hand box to give a user access to them within this Group Profile.
When a field grants default access to all codes, you'll see Access to all records - (ALL) in the right-hand box.
- Click OK.
- Click Save Security Profile to apply your changes.
You'll see the below buttons in the popup when you're restricting codes against a field, offering you some useful additional configuration options.
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Select/deselect all records in the window to move them in bulk. |
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Set the selected code as the default value |
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Default the security for this field to user level. Allows user 'extended property' to be configured to restrict access to specific codes at user level rather than security profile level. |
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Make all selected records editable on receipts. |
Security groups
Admin Home > Security > Security Groups
Security groups sit in the middle of the security hierarchy, sitting above security profiles. They contain security profiles that have been grouped together, and inherit the security access of those security profiles.
Security groups control the following:
- User access to a specific company. As a minimum, there needs to be one security group per company. However, the number of security groups is usually dictated by how the security profiles are structured.
- The default layouts that appear in the Layout field when users enter a new transaction.
You can configure the behaviour of the below fields in a security group.
| Security group description |
We recommend that you use this format for your security group description: "Security group for department - company" Eg. "Security group for Finanace - Company A" |
| Company code | Choose the company that the security group is linked to. A security group can only be linked to one company code. |
| Default layout for requisitions | If a requisition layout has been created, you need to select an option here, even if there's only one listed. |
| Default layout for direct invoices | If a direct invoice layout has been created, you need to select an option here, even if there's only one listed. |
| Default layout for credit notes | if a credit note layout has been created, you need to select an option here, even if there's only one listed. |
| Default layout for expenses | If an expenses layout has been created, you need to select an option here, even if there's only one listed. |
| Default layout for contracts | If a contracts layout has been created, you need to select an option here, even if there's only one listed. |
| Default layout for work orders | If a work orders layout has been created, you need to select a option here, even if there's only one listed. |
Add security profiles to a security group
The Security Groups area contains a list of the security profiles that are assigned to it from lower down in the hierarchy.
To add or remove security profiles from a security group, follow these steps.
- In a security group, click Add or Remove Security Profiles.
- A popup appears, with a list of available security profiles on the left.
Drag a security profile from the left box to the one on the right to add them to the security group.
- Click OK.
- Click Save Security Group.
Group Profiles
Admin Home > Security > Group Profiles
Group profiles sit at the top of the security hierarchy. Group profiles contain one or more security groups, and they inherit the security configuration from those groups, as well as the security profiles within those groups.
Each user in Compleat is assigned a single group profile, which inherits all of the security configuration from the group profile and the hierarchy beneath it. A user account can only be linked to one group profile.
You can configure the below fields in a group profile.
| Profile description |
We recommend this format: "Group profile for department name" |
| E-invoicing units |
You can use this field to restrict access to invoices in the Unprocessed tray from different e-invoicing email addresses within the same company. This is typically used by finance teams. |
Add or remove security groups in a group profile
In the Group Profiles area, you can see the security groups assigned to a group from lower down in the security hierarchy.
To add or remove security groups from a group profile, follow these steps
- In a group profile, click the Add or Remove Security Groups button in the top-right.
- Click and drag security groups from the left to the right to add them in the group profile.
To remove them from the group profile, click and drag them to the left.
- Click OK.
- Click Save Group Profile to apply your changes.